


pay no attention to the man behind the trigger

by molotovhappyhour



Series: The Force Shall Free Me [4]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, M/M, action sequence but with feeling, lightsaber duels but with feeling, master/padawan relationship implied, though eren's not a padawan anymore eyooo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2014-06-05
Packaged: 2018-02-03 12:48:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1745144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/molotovhappyhour/pseuds/molotovhappyhour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gold is the colour of vengeance. Of the dark. Of poison. It doesn't look so good on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pay no attention to the man behind the trigger

**Author's Note:**

> will i ever have a better continuity than adjusting the series order post-posting? we just don't know.

Levi doesn't know what he expected when he landed on Omwat.

(The planet had felt cold, refreshing, _free_ —but there was a storm on it, a blotch he could feel from the atmosphere before he landed. It felt like oil and tasted like ground-up pumice. It smacked of bitter rage and rumbled with the threat of something deeper.

It had felt like a stain on his lungs.)

Eren is a burning sensation in the center of his chest _right now_ (always), his lightsaber coming down in a forward slash, catching in the cross of Levi's own, scattering sparks and a _whumph_ of sound.

He doesn't know what he expected, but here he is, sweat beading on the back of his neck, an ugly bruise rising on his back protesting as he shifts his weight to the balls of his feet, pushing forward, spinning to try and land another hit—because Eren has never quite learned to block properly, and he always leaves himself open right _there_ —

The blue sets fire to a black-brown robe, and a flicker of sensation somewhere deep inside the white noise of the Force is the only indication that Levi needs to duck into a roll _now_ —

Eren’s landing kicks up dust, a sound that could rattle ferrocrete catching against the backs of his teeth. They catch their breath, Eren wiping at blood that keeps dribbling from the corner of his mouth, a gift from the pommel of one of Levi's sabers, probably caused a split in his tongue, or the inside of his cheek.

When Eren looks at him, his eyes are stained gold.

(And Levi thinks of Mandalore, when Eren’s eyes had been green but playing tricks, but he’d smiled and Levi had gone weak, something warm and vibrant rushing through his bloodstream. It had threatened to drown him.

It threatens to drown him now.)

“I didn't teach you that,” Levi says with a gesture to Eren's ruined robe, to avoid saying other things, to keep his voice level, to stop himself from bolting.

“Sure you did,” says the person that had been (is, still is, always will be) Eren Jaeger, his voice something like sandpaper on glass. “Deception, right? That’s what Jedi do.” The words reverberate, smacking Levi hard, threatening to leave him breathless, pushing into his mouth to leave a streak of rot clinging to his tongue.

There’s a flicker of movement and they meet again, close enough that Levi can see sweat and blood mingling on Eren’s lips, tries searching out some green in the loud yellow rage that’s pulling his stomach up through his throat, rubbing his windpipe raw. When he inhales he can taste salt and something poisonous and it doesn’t taste like Eren. It _doesn’t_.

Levi tries to parry away Eren’s next strike and is almost successful, but there’s a ripple of movement in the Force and Eren _shoves_. Both their boots scrape against the ground, bending grasses and scaring wildlife. Levi braces himself, pulling close and holding the Force inside him like a secret ache.

His boots skid to a stop. Eren doesn’t.

Eren’s lightsaber catches on one of Levi’s own and Levi turns in the way that Erwin taught him to, pivoting on the toes of one foot, stealing Eren's feet out from under him, finishing out the spin with one of his lightsabers at Eren’s throat, the other held in a guard at his back.

Eren looks like he’s going to spit or push out into the Force to try and knock him back—and so Levi pushes down on him with that, too, keeping all of Eren in place, building a wall around the eruption deep beneath Eren's sternum (like he thought he'd been doing before, like he _should_ have done before). “I taught you better than this,” and his voice doesn't break, which is something.

“Bullshit,” and the laugh that comes out isn’t any better than the screaming of metal on metal. Levi would rather swallow that with his own mouth than hear it again. “Bullshit. You said _don't do this, don't do that, don't feel this way, don't say that thing_. Where's all that shit supposed to go? Huh? You taught me not to say shit _out loud_." A pause and something flits across his face. “So what're you gonna teach me now?”

There is a word written in the way Eren tilts his throat, the brown of his skin turning a deep red from the humming burn of a lightsaber in close proximity. It’ll raise welts on his neck.

Levi thumbs the saber at this throat off.

(The one at his back stays humming, the rhythm itching at his wrist.

Normally Eren would watch his back—but that’s wishful thinking just now. Foolish thinking.)

“Come back,” Levi says. ( _“Everyone,”_ Erwin had told him years after he’d passed his trials, after dancing around the Senate and working his way through loopholes, _“has a set of magic words. You just have to find them.”_ )

Eren doesn’t breathe for one moment—and holds it for a couple more. But he does sit up, easing into a crouch as if this would be a trap. As if _Levi_ would do that to him. “What?”

Something wobbles on his face. Levi doesn’t have a word for it.

“Come back,” Levi repeats, this time slowly, even though they don't mean anything different now. He doesn't have the energy for a monologue, doesn’t think Eren would believe any promise he made right now anyway. “Come back. I came out here to take you home, so come back with me.”

(He had been urgent, he'd been demanding, he'd needed to find him.

 _"Where is Eren?_ " 

He'd said the same words so many times that it's a wonder they aren't branded onto his tongue.)

Surprise wrinkles Eren's nose, incredulity setting in the line of his mouth. (The heat is waning, the taste of ozone a lingering thing, and the flames inside Eren are burning out. Levi can feel it, like a weight lifting from atop his chest. And he can _breathe_.) “You didn’t come out here to save me.”

“Fucking liar,” Levi says. “I always do.” (He always will—there isn’t a rock in this galaxy where Eren could hide from him.)

Eren’s eyes squeeze shut and he winks out of Levi's awareness.

(And there’s one split second of panic where it feels like Eren’s died, like something has withered up and disappeared, even though he’s sitting right in front of him.)

When he opens them again, they’re wet and weeping, tears gathering at the corners and spilling over—and Levi knows he’s found the magic words. (Though they don’t quite mean what they look like they mean—they’re different, contextual, bigger than they seem.) He stands without a word and breezes by Levi, bruised and cut and empty.

He leaves his lightsaber behind, turned off and covered in grime.

Levi thumbs off the saber at his back, a trust exercise that could potentially get him killed, and clips both of his own to his belt to pick up Eren's and take it with him.

(Eren looks over his shoulder, blinking slowly.

The Omwati sun is setting and it catches on his eyes, lighting them from the inside.

And they’re _green_.)


End file.
